Meetup, one of the world’s first social media platforms and the only one dedicated to groups that meet in-person or online during times of crisis, announced that the company has been acquired. The consortium of investors is led by Kevin Ryan’s AlleyCorp and includes mission-driven private funds and accomplished technology executives. Ryan joins as Chairman of the board. David Siegel will stay on as CEO of Meetup, board member, and he will continue to lead the company.
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Meetup will divest from The We Company (“WeWork“) and operate independently after two-and-a-half years as a subsidiary. The company will continue to service its growing 49 million members and over 230,000 organizers, who collectively produce an average of 15,000 in-person events daily. Meetup’s enterprise business solutions will also continue under Meetup Pro, a community building and engagement platform with more than 1,500 clients including Adobe, Google, Microsoft Azure, IBM, Twitter, and Looker and hundreds of entrepreneurs.
“This acquisition provides the long-term capital to ensure that Meetup focuses on what is most important: the organizers who make Meetup successful, our passionate members, and our dedicated employees,” said David Siegel, CEO of Meetup. “We are excited to continue on our mission of empowering personal growth through real human connections, and I’m happy to have brought in a team of smart investors who share and support the same values.”
“We are confident in the enormous potential of the business and Meetup’s mission of bringing people together in substantive ways,” said Kevin Ryan of AlleyCorp, who is the lead investor and Chairman of the Board. “We are very excited to collectively serve and grow Meetup’s extensive and incredibly engaged user base.”
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A predecessor to Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter, Meetup shares a similar global member reach, throughout 193 countries. Contrastingly, Meetup’s business is built around using online social media to help people be more social offline — without using its users’ private data for the purpose of targeted advertising. In 2019, Meetup drove 30 million hours of real-life human connection and experienced a 40% growth in its enterprise business. In 2020, the company updated its policy to allow organizers to host events online during the Coronavirus pandemic.
Meetup was founded in 2002 as a platform for finding and building local communities. While the company and its user base have significantly expanded and evolved since then, the mission has remained the same. Meetup will always foster human connection. This acquisition will propel Meetup to continue exploring and growing innovative new ways of bringing communities together.
“We thank David and the entire Meetup team for their many contributions to WeWork over the past two and a half years,” said Rohit Dave, Head of Corporate Development, WeWork. “Our decision to divest Meetup aligns with WeWork’s renewed focus on the company’s core workspace business and marks a positive step forward for both WeWork and Meetup.”
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